I was educated at the universities of Durham, York and Cambridge, where I obtained my PhD in 1989. I then worked in in the University of London for 20 years (at King's College London for 1 year, then at UCL for 19 years).

​In 2017 I moved to Budapest to become professor of philosophy at the Central European University. The CEU is an independent, private, English-language graduate school.

I am the General Editor of the Routledge Encylopedia of Philosophy and the Philosophy Consultant Editor of the TLS. In the academic year 2016-17, I was President of the Aristotelian Society. I gave the Seybert Lectures (Pennsylvania) in 2008, the Burman Lectures (Umea) in 2010, the Carnap Lectures (Bochum) in 2011 and the Frege Lectures (Tartu) in 2017.